← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Why Was a Rookie Leading This Case? | Nancy Guthrie Case Update
01:15:10
Loading summary
Transcript318 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. I'm Ashley Banfield, and this is Drop dead Serious. Thank you for being here. Thank you for subscribing. And if you haven't yet subscribed, this is it. The little button. It's free, it's easy. It might even go ding when you do it. And I so appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here. And also, if you're a member, I really appreciate you guys. If you want to join, there's a little join button down there as well. We'd love to have you. We do all sorts of special member stuff just for the members. So I've got some more reports for you. This is day 59, y', all, and I'm recording this on March 31st. It is the last day of March, which means Tomorrow is day 60 in Nancy's investigation. Okay, So I learned something from my law enforcement sources that so much that I learned makes me so angry. Others I find fascinating. Like, if you didn't see yesterday's episode, check it out. I finally have learned from my sources where the perpetrator got into Nancy's house. It's in the middle back door, the door that goes into the kitchen. And when Savannah said doors propped open, plural, it meant the screen door and the wooden door of the same entrance. The screen door was propped open with the flower pots, and so was the. The gate to the backyard. So check out yesterday's episode if you haven't already, for more details about that. Today, though, I have learned that in the very beginning of this case. Right. You know how it's so important at the beginning of a case, Timing is everything. Like the. Your countdown is everything when you have a missing person. It's just like the hours count. In the very beginning of this case, when we learned from the sheriff that homicide had been called in because there was, you know, disturbing things inside the house, we learned what that is. Right? It's the back door wide open. I told you that on day three. And also blood found in the house. I told you that on day three. I also, in the last several weeks, have learned blood droplets in the front foyer inside Nancy's house that go outside her front door and down, you know, the pathway. We knew about the blood outside. We also know about the blood inside. So the homicide detectives were brought in because of that. Right. And now I'm learning that the lead detective assigned to this case, to a case that was as high profile as the Nancy Guthrie case, was from day two. Two. And we know it was high profile because Sheriff Nanos called a news Conference. You don't call a news conference for any homicide case. You call a news conference for a high profile case that you are getting hammered with questions. The media interest is massive, so you have to hold a news conference. And on day two, he held a news conference. So we know it was a high profile case. And who was assigned the spot of lead detective on this high profile and bewildering case? It was a homicide Detective with exactly 2 years experience in Homicide, 2 years under his belt, and he's given lead detective on Nancy Guthrie's case. So my reaction to that is, what? What the actual fuck? Are you kidding me? A guy with two years experience in homicide gets lead, gets pole position on the Nancy Guthrie case that we have known since day one was a big deal and since day two was so big, there needed to be a news conference. Yeah, that's what's happened. My law enforcement sources have told me that's what happened. Not one, but multiple law enforcement sources have now told me, yeah, yeah, basically, the guy with two years under his belt as a. As a homicide detective got the case. So now you're gonna say, well, actually, maybe things changed as they realized this. This case was really difficult. And, you know, as days went on, it got even more frustrating and difficult. They thought they'd solve it quickly, and that wasn't happening. So they moved him off and they brought somebody in and with more experience. And that did not happen. According to my sources, that did not happen. In fact, what my sources have told me was that this fella, and I'm sure he's perfectly lovely, and he may be a very good police officer. Right. And he's got experience as a, you know, as an officer beforehand. It's just as a detective. As a homicide detective, two years. And that's not to say that he isn't great. I don't know that he could be fantastic. But I also know in everybody's business that experience drives success and product. Right. All of that experience is at the apex of what you need to do the right job to do a great job. And he didn't have the experience, and yet he stayed on as lead detective all the way up until I'm told the task force was created. So I went back in my notes and I can, you know, I consulted the trustee, Brian Enten, and all of his shows as well. And Brian enten reported on March 4, which is day 33. Let me read you what Brian said. As part of the refocusing of resources, we have learned four detectives and a sergeant from The Pima county sheriff's office have been assigned to a task force with the FBI to continue investigating Nancy Guthrie's disappearance. The task force will be stationed at the FBI office in Tucson. This is a change from virtually all detectives working on the case. End quote. That's Brian Entrance reporting on day 33, March 4th. Now, I don't know if the task force was created that day that Brian found that information out, or the day before or maybe a few days before. Whatever it is, around day 33, we got a task force which means that for roughly a month, if my law enforcement sources are correct, and they have been all along, you had a two year rookie at the helm of the Nancy Guthrie homicide case. I don't know about that. I mean, that makes me very uneasy. You know, I remember me at two years experience, I wasn't ready for, you know, I was ready to, like, do some filing and get people coffee and maybe occasionally be sent out to do a story and have it double, triple checked by the bosses. But I was in no position to be telling other people what to do in my business. I didn't know enough about my business. I could have studied it and learned it and been on the job and all the rest, but I still didn't know
- [07:05]
B
squat.
- [07:07]
A
I still feel at year 38 that I have lots to learn, you know, but this lead detective on the case had two years. That's what I call a complete rookie. Why, I ask, why would that suffice? There's all sorts of reasons why people get assigned. And I don't work, you know, in a homicide unit, you know, draw straws, a number system, you know, just round robin. You get, when your number's up, you get the case. But. But when you get a case that defies all the others, that's an outlier. That's different. Especially like this one. This one, I think we could safely say is up there with the Gabby Petitos and the Idaho, you know, massacre at 1122 King Road. You know that these are big cases and I'm just surprised that it would stand that the two year rookie would keep it for somewhere around 33 days till the task force was created. So I called up a guy who I have watched do interviews, talked to Brian Entin. He seemed like the perfect guest for this. His name is Kurt Dabb. Okay? He's a retired Pima county sheriff's deputy from, you guessed it, from the homicide division. He was a homicide detective for seven years. And if there were anyone who would know a thing or two about Rookie homicide detectives in Pima County. It's Kurt. Because I remember very well when Brian Entin asked Kurt Dabb a few questions about the unit, about the sheriff's deputies who are working in homicide. This is all within the first couple weeks of the case. He said the average experience level of most of those homicide cops in Pima county right now is two to three years. And the words he used were, that's baby cops. That's baby cops. Right. And so I called Kurt to ask him about this, this, this scoop that I got, that this lead detective had only two years experience in, in homicide. And he told me a lot, like he had a lot to say about that and how, you know, that ripples out into everything el regard to this case. And then I asked him a few other things because given the fact that, you know, he's done his time, you know, he's retired now. What did he think about the scoop that we had yesterday about the flower pots, Nancy's flower pots, being used to prop open that back screen door leading into the kitchen door into the. The kitchen. That's if you're looking at the house. That's the back of the house. It's the middle door just to the left of the patio, the far left hand side of that patio where the couch is. It's not the door way over on the left, the pretty bluish gray door. It's not the door over on the right under the patio awning that's also bluish gray to the right of the couch. It's actually a door that's, that's, that's perpendicular and vertical to your vision. You can't see it. It's why we had such trouble finding it at first. But that's the door that was used to gain access into Nancy's home. And the reason Savannah Guthrie said back doors, plural, propped open, was because those are two doors to the same entrance. It's a screen door and then the kitchen door. So those doors, plural, at that one entrance, were the only entrance that was wide open. Yeah. And then the flower pots, I learned since, were what were used to prop that door open at the screen door and then to prop open the back gate. This son of a propped open the back gate with Nancy's flower pots. He should have kept his filthy fingers off her beautiful flower pots and her and her life. Keep your fingers away from Nancy's life. It's too late for that. In any case, I asked Kurt about theories now, knowing that he props open the entrance in egress, and yet Takes her out the front door. And we know that because of the blood evidence, the drips. Right. Goes out to the driveway, stops at the driveway, where presumably she's loaded into a vehicle. And he's got some things to say about that too, with the experience that he has as a homicide detective. And to that point, my colleague Brian Enten has some reporting today that matches are reporting from my law enforcement sources. And that is. And I think it was only, I think Friday, maybe I did this episode, or Saturday, that inside Nancy's home, it was just devoid of evidence of a crime. It looked as though there was no crime that had been committed. Except for the blood in that front entrance and the man on the video. It would have looked like she just got up out of bed and walked out of the house. That was my reporting from Friday of last week that it just didn't look like a crime had been committed in there. Right. Other than the blood drops in her front foyer, going over her front door and out the front entrance, the tile work, and then down the. The walkway to the driveway, and that harrowing image of the ski mask clad man on video. But for those things, it just did not look like a crime had been committed. And that's what Brian Entenus is learning as well from his sources, that the house is immaculate. You know, so little by little, all the stuff that my law enforcement sources have been telling me since day three, it is all bearing out, every piece of it. And multiple sources have come in since then and doubled up on that being true. So here is my conversation about this rookie cop, this rookie homicide detective, being placed at the helm of the Nancy Guthrie investigation from the beginning and staying there for the better part of a month. So, Kurt, what do you think about this information that I've received that the lead detective assigned to the Nancy Guthrie case, right off the bat, had just two years under his belt? He was a newbie.
- [13:00]
C
Well, it's a little misleading. He had two years under his belt as a detective.
- [13:06]
B
And that is.
- [13:10]
C
That's a problem, especially when you're investigating homicides.
- [13:14]
B
I think the detective in question probably has six or seven years on right now, but at the time of the case, suffice to say, he had about two years experience as a detective, not as a homicide detective.
- [13:30]
A
Does that matter to the layperson? Like, I hear that, and I think, oh, my God, he's a kid. But is that kind of standard? Is that just sort of the way it works?
- [13:41]
C
Well, usually in the sheriff's department, and all I can do is Speak on,
- [13:45]
B
you know, the 20 years that I was there.
- [13:49]
C
At about year three, when I was
- [13:50]
B
working, I showed interest in the homicide unit. I spoke with the homicide sergeant, said, I really want to get into this unit. You know, this is a unit books and movies are made of, right? And he's like, you gotta earn your stripes, man. So I busted my butt. The normal progression, if you will, is you bust your butt patrol and you go in to be a detective. Usually it's burglaries or nonviolent criminal offenses like garden hose theft, bicycle theft, those things. General investigations.
- [14:24]
C
You're in your stripes there for, you know, a year or two or a little bit more, and then you normally
- [14:32]
B
can progress to the violent crime side of the house. We're talking domestic violence, we're talking armed robberies, we're talking kidnappings, homicides, those things like that, violent assaults.
- [14:46]
C
And then if, you know, one has a proclivity towards, you know, investigating, you
- [14:52]
B
know, the ultimate violent crime, you know, they would test to be in the homicide unit. It's my understanding that's the progression that, you know, I went through, and I'm guessing, you know, most of the other homicide detectives prior to me.
- [15:09]
C
It's my understanding now that I know there's one individual that's in the homicide
- [15:15]
B
unit that definitely wanted to be there. She's been there for a few years. She had a little bit of experience under her belt, but not a lot of homicide experience. A couple of the other individuals that are in the unit, it's my understanding heard through the grapevine that, you know, these are individuals that are great cops, very good detectives, very apt, very knowledgeable, but homicide is not their thing. And so when, you know, these are
- [15:46]
A
the people on the task force now, is that the people you're talking about now who are involved directly with the Guthrie case?
- [15:51]
C
It would be individuals that are in
- [15:54]
B
the homicide unit that current individuals that are in the homicide unit.
- [15:57]
A
Yeah, because as I understand it, they have now moved on. Whoever's working in homicide is now working with the regular course of business. But the specified, I think five or so are in on the task force and that this original guy, who is a two year veteran, he's no longer with that, that case. He didn't move on to the task force. It was reassigned to somebody else who's got about 10 years or so.
- [16:23]
C
Okay, well, to me that makes sense. And to me, it would have made a lot of sense early in the investigation to bring back former homicide detectives
- [16:35]
B
that are still working in the sheriff's department. Albeit in different assignments now, to bring them in to help with the case,
- [16:43]
C
knowing full well that the homicide unit
- [16:46]
B
was lacking severely in experience investigating homicides. So I was a little bit dismayed up front. And you know, look, you have plenty of homicide detectives that are retired, you know, that could be deputized to come back and help with the case. Not saying that I would do that, but, you know, there are. That is an option. And none of those options, as far as I'm aware, you know, were taken.
- [17:16]
A
It sort of defies logic, especially because right from the get go, you have a case on day two, right, which would be Monday, February 2nd, that the sheriff deems important. Important enough, high profile enough, vexing enough to hold a news conference to update the public saying, this is not a woman who just wandered off on her own. She's sharp as a tack. There's some evidence inside the home that leads us to bring in the homicide division and he's having a press conference for those reasons. It stands out above the other homicide cases that come in. This one's special, it's bigger, it's more odd, and it's high profile. But. So why then would have it. Would have it been assigned to somebody with only two years as a homicide detective?
- [18:02]
C
Well, that's a question that, you know,
- [18:04]
B
the sheriff would have to answer or the.
- [18:07]
C
One of the chiefs or the captain or lieutenant that are in charge of the homicide division. To me, it doesn't make any sense. And look, when I was working homicides, I did seven years with the homicide
- [18:19]
B
department or homicide unit at the sheriff's department two separate times, one for three years, one for four.
- [18:27]
C
When I was working, we would average
- [18:29]
B
anywhere between 12 to 20 homicides a year. And that was about half of what the Tucson police department would get, which is the city within pima county.
- [18:39]
C
So the county we would investigate 12 to 20 a year. This was during the 2009, 10, 11, 12 time frame. My first time when Tucson was extremely violent. We were having home invasions, drug rips,
- [18:54]
B
kidnappings, all kinds of crazy stuff.
- [18:58]
C
Moving on to now, it seems that
- [19:01]
B
there's less violent crime in the county, which is great for us citizens, but
- [19:07]
C
it's not so good for the homicide
- [19:09]
B
unit because they're not investigating the amount of homicides that my team investigated when I was there.
- [19:17]
C
And I by no stretch of the
- [19:19]
B
imagine imagination saying that, you know, investigating 12 to 20 homicides, you know, a year, which I did, you know, is some grand thing. When you have New York city, Chicago, Detroit, Louisiana, those, you know, units where they're investigating, you know, 50 to 100 a year.
- [19:35]
A
Yeah, it isn't nothing.
- [19:36]
C
Correct.
- [19:36]
B
It's not nothing.
- [19:38]
C
So, yes, it, it's a problem to me.
- [19:41]
B
It's a concern to me that especially
- [19:46]
C
one of the, you know, and I
- [19:48]
B
don't know where I heard this from, but I did hear it, that that individual didn't even want to be a homicide detective, you know, that maybe he or one of the other detectives, this
- [20:02]
A
lead detective, the one with the two years experience, did not even want to be a detective.
- [20:06]
C
Didn't even want to. And so not didn't want to be a homicide detective. See, you know, like I explained earlier, there's a calling to do homicides. Not everybody wants to get into the weeds in investigating homicides.
- [20:23]
B
They're very violent, they're very disgusting to look at. You truly do see the true pure evil of mankind and you know, it can cause problems with individuals later on in life, mental health issues, stuff like that, ptsd. So although homicide is a, is, you know, the top of the tops as far as, you know, in my opinion, investigating crimes, it's something that you have to be called to because if you're not going to go into it 100% and not dip your toes in the pool, jump both feet, you know, first, then it's not going to be something that, that you're going to be good at because you're not going to put a whole hundred percent effort mentally because it's not, it's not your thing. You're going to do the job, you're
- [21:19]
C
going to do it to standard, but
- [21:21]
B
you're not gonna, you just don't have the, the feeling, the heart, the passion. Yeah, yeah, the passion.
- [21:30]
A
So look, I, I don't know how that unit operates. I sometimes think every unit is like a, you know, a sports team and you know, deciding to hand the ball off when the buzzer's on its way to Rudy, it would dishearten a lot of people, you know, on that team. Do you know if that happened in this particular case where they have this high profile, very visible press conference earning murder case or homicide case potentially, we don't know. But there got the homicide guys in to, to the young guy.
- [22:07]
C
Well, you know, it's, you have, you
- [22:11]
B
have to have that passion, you have to have that, that attitude. Like I worked the Gabby Giffords case. I was in homicide. I spent an entire, nearly an entire week at that Safeway parking lot as a liaison with the FBI. But every, all, all. Well, I think there might have been four of us in the homicide unit at that time, all of us were chomping at the bit, wanting that case. Right. Because we do that on every case. Because it's a homicide. It's what we wanted to do. I don't know if that was the case with this one. And I'm not saying I do know, and I'm just not saying I'm not telling you. I legit don't know what the feelings were when this call came out and people have done.
- [23:00]
A
Let me just get clarity. You don't know if the rest of the guys thought, what the hell? Why? Why is this guy gonna lead this extraordinary? I mean, this is like going to the show, you know?
- [23:12]
C
Yeah. I don't know what. What anybody thought. And again, this individual is not a
- [23:18]
B
bad cop by any stretch of the imagination.
- [23:21]
A
And I don't want to malign this person either. Let's be really clear, because if anybody's viewing right now and thinking, ashley, come on, give it a rest. I'm only saying that I know what. As a cub reporter, and I was not ready for primetime, let's just put it that way. And I didn't necessarily get prime time back then.
- [23:37]
B
Right.
- [23:39]
C
You know, and I think that. I think you're saying that right there. I wasn't ready. I knew I wasn't ready. I felt. I didn't think I was ready. I had that same conversation before I went to Homicide. I spoke to one of my future
- [23:53]
B
homicide sergeants, Sergeant Jill Isley, one of the best homicide detectives the sheriff's department has had, as far as I'm concerned.
- [24:02]
C
And I told her, I'm like, you
- [24:03]
B
know, I don't have the experience to go into homicide, but I really want to, so I'm trying. She's like, kurt, it's the same job that everybody else does. It's the same search warrants. You're just using different words. It's the same search techniques. You're just using more tools. So it's not that big of a deal. But for some people, you know, it can be a deal breaker because they don't think that they can live up to the expectations. When I was at the Homicide unit, and I'm sure you've spoken to many, many homicide detectives, the Homicide unit is usually the best looked at as the best detectives on the department. And I don't know if that's the way it's looked at at the Sheriff's department here in Pima county anymore, which
- [24:55]
A
is sad because of this case.
- [24:59]
C
No, I think that it's just the.
- [25:03]
B
I think it's a generational thing.
- [25:05]
C
You know, we have a lot of young kids that are becoming cops these days. Look, when I applied, there were 3,500,
- [25:12]
B
4,000 people applying for 10 spots. Now you're lucky if they get 300 people applying for 40 spots that they're trying to fill in an academy. So when I took this profession, I did it as. Or this job. I looked at it as a profession. I was going to do this till AI either died, because that's just the mentality that I had, or I was going to retire.
- [25:37]
C
Kids these days are coming in to police work under a very, very giant
- [25:44]
B
microscope that, you know, and I'm talking about public perception. I'm talking about command staff perception, legal perception, and they are feeling like no one has their back. Right. Command staff's against the wall because they're getting bitched at by the public about this. And a deputy goes out and does something, uses force, and everybody know that. Yeah. So it's.
- [26:16]
C
It's just. It's just a crazy situation. To have people in a unit that,
- [26:22]
B
you know, is highly regarded in every agency worldwide, every agency's homicide unit is looked upon that way. And to have, you know, young deputies in there that don't want to do this as a profession, in my mind, prevents them from becoming as passionate as I did because it was my chosen profession. So you're having these young kids come
- [26:48]
C
in for two or three years, they're getting their kicks, you know, their car chases, foot chases, fights, shootings, you know, the whole gamut. And then they realize, you know, they're like, well, this is really not the position for me to. To live a healthy life. So I'm just going to go sit behind a computer and make six figures, whereas you're not going to make six figures as a cop. So we're getting a lot of turn. You're getting a lot of turnover, and this is nationwide.
- [27:19]
A
You know, I. I'm sort of getting the idea that it's. It's sort of a demoralized atmosphere in the Pima County Sheriff's homicide unit. And I. I wonder.
- [27:31]
C
In the whole department, not just the
- [27:33]
A
unit, in the whole department.
- [27:34]
B
Yeah.
- [27:35]
A
And so do you think that infected the team, you know, the homicide detectives, in a way that might have actually had an effect on the investigation, that NC Guthrie investigation?
- [27:47]
C
I wouldn't go. I wouldn't go that far. I mean, homicide detectives, cops are used
- [27:53]
B
to working under pressure.
- [27:55]
C
So I don't think that there's anything that command staff or the sheriff, you know, has done that is insurmountable in court.
- [28:06]
B
And, you know, I'm saying that because investigating, you know, as many cases as I've investigated, whether normal investigations or regular investigations, mistakes are going to be made. But as long as those mistakes are rectified within a reasonable amount of time and you're able to articulate why, you know, it was done inappropriately the first time or wasn't done, you know, the first time, they're not insurmountable.
- [28:37]
C
Whether or not the detectives had the autonomy to make decisions on their own
- [28:48]
B
is another, you know, question that I don't have the answer to.
- [28:52]
C
But again, because they were so experienced,
- [28:56]
B
you know, I was giving the command staff, you know, a difficult time because I had heard and I believed, you know, that they were meddling in the investigation, sort of, you know, quote unquote, running it. And I don't know that to be
- [29:08]
C
true,
- [29:11]
B
but if you have an inexperienced homicide unit, I think that would make some sense. But the more sense, like I said earlier, is just bring the guys and girls back with the experience, Let them join the team and help Kurt.
- [29:28]
A
It's now, you know, day 59 as I record this on March 31, and, you know, from all indications, it seems like things have really stalled. My inside sources, the actual words that were used were we ain't got shit. A lot of other journalists have said their sources have said the same thing, that things are really, really stalled. I know there's still thousands of tips they have to go through, but do you think it's possible that the momentum is really slowed maybe because of the inexperience early on in this case?
- [29:58]
B
Well, there's a word that's key to this, and it's called compartmentalization. Okay. When you're investigating a homicide and especially a high profile case like this, the detectives, they're. They're not gonna. They're not gonna say anything. They're not gonna tell their buddies on a department, you know, what they're working. And everybody wants to know, you know, everyone wants to know about homicides. You know, what's going on. Doesn't matter if it's this one or another one. People just want to know. So, yes, on the outside, it looks like nothing's going on. It looks like it's a, quote unquote, cold case. And, you know, we just. Half guys are just sitting back and waiting. And that's far from the truth. Unless that information that you got was from one of the actual investigators, you know, on the task force. I. I would take it with a grain of salt, especially if what you're saying is true about them sending, you know, a detective with 10 years of homicide experience to work on the task for. So,
- [31:08]
C
again, the lack of experience initially,
- [31:14]
B
from my point of view, caused some issues, but they're not insurmountable, so they'll be able to get them worked out. And just because the sheriff's department's not, you know, putting out press, community communications daily, you know, keeping everybody updated, doesn't mean that that task force of those FBI, agen and experienced homicide detectives, you know, are just sitting in the office twiddling their thumbs.
- [31:44]
A
But do you think the valuable time might have been lost? Like, you know, if you got your top guys on the case right from day one? You know, this guy's not getting far or at least valuable information isn't dissipating or disappearing or being lost completely. That's. I guess that's my point. If you. If it was. If it was top guys, right off the bat, did we potentially lose some really valuable investigative product?
- [32:08]
C
Yeah, absolutely.
- [32:12]
B
Time. We lost time. And with that time came possible leads and information. So, yeah. But again, I don't think it's something that can't be overcome once it goes to trial. I fully believe. I mean, if it goes to trial, but I fully believe that they're going to get to the bottom of this. It's just going to take some time.
- [32:36]
A
I love that you say that. I love that you are so optimistic that you're even thinking about trial so often. In this case, I'm not even going there. And I always go there. I always go, ooh, protect the scene, protect the evidence, protect the chain of custody. I always go there as a true crime reporter, but in this particular case, I haven't even felt the luxury of that. I have only felt, are they ever just gonna find her, let alone the guy?
- [33:02]
C
Well, you know, there's so many.
- [33:05]
B
There's so much information that comes in, and it's a roller coaster for an investigator.
- [33:10]
C
Like, I guarantee you those.
- [33:12]
B
That first SWAT operation that they did down in Rio Rico, Arizona, I'm assuming, based on how it played out, that they obtained a search warrant for this
- [33:23]
C
individual, located him, detained him, questioned him, photographed him, fingerprinted him, and got DNA swabs from him.
- [33:33]
B
That's what that thing was for. But I can tell you, those homicide investigators, their adrenaline was through the roof when they're writing the search warrant. You know what I mean? When they're getting everybody up and they're Briefing them. All right, this is what we're going.
- [33:46]
C
So those type of things happen all the time. Some of those things might happen. It might happen multiple times a day where you're reading through something or you're
- [33:56]
B
sitting there watching hours and hours and hours of video, and you see something, and you don't know when that's going to happen, I'm assuming, because I've investigated cases before that that has happened a number of times, even in the past couple of weeks, where they thought that they're onto something or think that they're onto something, and, you know, they're working on it. So it does suck from the sleuths, the civilian sleuths. It sucks true crime reporters. It sucks for US Citizens, and it
- [34:31]
C
definitely sucks for us retired cops, because I would like to say my team
- [34:36]
B
that I was with, you know, we would have done a much better job investigating this. But, you know, maybe that's just my ego.
- [34:46]
A
And it also sucks for. For Savannah Guthrie and her family, who are just in absolute agony. I mean, I see that interview, and I think, good, go. Not one of us could imagine being in her shoes. And in a way, I'm glad that people are seeing that, because what Savannah's going through is what so many victims of crime go through anonymously. They don't have a camera or an audience to share just how painful it is to be on the receiving end of crime like this. And so it's good for people to understand, like, this is. The stakes are just. They don't get higher than the loss and the mystery of where your loved one is. I am interested in you talking about this deputizing. I hadn't even thought of that. I didn't even realize that that's completely within the arsenal. You find yourself all of a sudden with a massive, high profile case. At one point, there were 400 people working on it. And yet you don't know that they weren't going back and grabbing the old vets and saying, come on, we need you to do some pinch hitting.
- [35:47]
B
Yeah, I never got a call. And, you know, I. Neither of my other buddies that were retired homicide, even the ones that are still working, you know, got a call,
- [35:56]
A
and many of them would have. They would have jumped in and said, I. I'm. Put me in, coach.
- [36:00]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. We.
- [36:02]
C
We have a separate cold case unit
- [36:04]
B
that wasn't even allowed to help investigate. And the cold case unit is plum full of experience homicide detectives now.
- [36:11]
C
You know, they went out and did
- [36:12]
B
menial tasks, you know, here and there, but to get, you know, roll up their sleeves and, you know, get dirty. That wasn't an option.
- [36:20]
A
And I know a lot of people get it wrong when they say, is the case. Has the case gone cold? A cold case, literally. And I'll repeat this as many times as I have to for any newbies who are watching now and getting into true crime. Most of the people watching know this, but a case doesn't go cold until the very last lead has been exhausted. There are no more leads coming in, and there's literally no investigative work for the detectives to. To pursue. Then they put it on a shelf. They wait for more to come in. We're not there. There are thousands and thousands of leads they still have to go through, clearly, with 40,000 plus coming in. But there's a cold case unit that should have been on this and they weren't.
- [36:58]
C
Yeah, we have a cold case unit. So when I was in homicide, we had cold case unit and a homicide unit, and whenever we went, the homicide unit got called out. We would call out the cold case
- [37:09]
B
unit because they had experienced homicide detectives and they would help us, you know, process the scene, conduct interviews. Usually, you know, within 24, within 48 hours, you know, their major tasks were done. And, you know, they're able to go back and investigate the cold cases, which is extremely important. But I think in this one, it would have been more apropos to just let those.
- [37:36]
C
We're going to have to put cold
- [37:37]
B
cases on the back burner for a while. They're cold and utilize the experience that the sheriff has at the agency. That would have been the smart thing to do, in my opinion.
- [37:52]
A
But to your knowledge, they're still not being used, Correct?
- [37:56]
C
Now, again, I don't know. I. I do not know what detectives
- [38:01]
B
are assigned to the task force. I heard. I don't know if I heard it earlier in this interview or earlier today. I don't know if it was you that mentioned or someone else, but, you know, with 10 years experience, you know, is, you know, on that, assigned to that task.
- [38:17]
A
That was. One of my law enforcement sources told me that, that, that someone who's now. Who should have likely been from the beginning and was there, and, you know, the whole idea is that these, these guys existed. They're. They're there in the department. They were just working on other cases. And that's a good question for you. I mean, since you were there, isn't it doable to switch somebody off one of the cases he or she might be working on? Somebody with a lot of Experience and put them on this, this big high profile mystery.
- [38:44]
C
Well, that's usually the way that it worked and I believe that's the way that it worked. Initially
- [38:51]
B
they had, you know, every detective working this case, but when you have detectives working a case initially, the only
- [38:59]
C
ones that are really in the know
- [39:01]
B
are the three or four homicide detectives that are in the unit and they're going to give a briefing and they're going to start delegating. They or the sergeant is going to start delegating tasks to the other deputies and detectives. So that's what their job was, to go out and do these ancillary tasks versus getting down, doing interviews, you know, searching the scene, going to the scene and putting eyes on, getting a feel for things, getting a sense for things. And to my understanding, that did not happen and still hasn't happened with the exception of whoever they sent over to the task force if it wasn't the actual homicide detectives.
- [39:44]
A
So I mean, again, I just keep coming back to the layperson here says, wait, if you're a lead on a case, you should be the most experienced because you're effectively directing the way the team's gonna operate. Is that the way it works? Is the lead detective on the case the one that sets the tone and then sets the mission in place, or is it different?
- [40:04]
C
Well, you can't have the most experienced detective investigate, be the lead on every homicide. So the way we used to do it at the sheriff's department is we used a number system and we would
- [40:15]
B
just number our homicides and we would have our names on the, on a
- [40:20]
C
list and whoever had the first homicide, the next name on a list, had the next one and then the next
- [40:25]
B
one and so on and so forth and it would just revolve. I don't know how they do things
- [40:30]
C
now, but I, I mean if I was making this look, if I was in the homicide unit and I had an inexperienced group with me, you best
- [40:43]
B
believe I would have stepped forward and said, I'm taking this case. Right? That's what experienced guys do. Whether or not that was, well, I, I'm fairly certain that that wasn't the, the case with this investigation.
- [40:59]
A
Well, let me ask you this. I mean, I don't know if they're using a number system still there or how they effectively ended up giving this two year homicide detective effective rookie the lead on this case. Isn't that something that the sheriff could circumvent and say, hey, you know what, this one's special, this is different, this is in the Public eye. It is more mysterious, maybe, than the average case. I'm reassigning this to somebody who's got a lot more under his or her belt.
- [41:26]
C
Well, I think that would be for
- [41:29]
B
Sheriff Nanos to do because of his huge ego and his micromanagerial style of leadership. But you also got to look at the flip side of that coin, too, where, you know, someone could tell him, one of his chiefs or captains or lieutenants or sergeant, tell him that that's. That this, you know, is too big of a case for someone with this much experience.
- [41:53]
A
And.
- [41:53]
B
And, you know, he may have just said no.
- [41:57]
A
That you think, what would be the
- [42:00]
C
reason to say no?
- [42:01]
A
What would be the reason to say no?
- [42:04]
B
Because Nanos makes the calls at the
- [42:07]
C
sheriff's department, and I'm not saying that that happened. Those are just the two options. Well, he's got a big ego. He doesn't care.
- [42:14]
A
But isn't the big ego fueled by the better guy solving the case, rather than, let's have a younger rookie? There's no upside for him to keep the younger rookie in place, is there?
- [42:23]
C
Well, I mean, if you have an ego as. As such, to where you don't care
- [42:28]
B
about the outcome, just that you were making the calls, and then you can place the blame, you know, push the blame down the line later on.
- [42:36]
C
But again, I. I don't know what one of those scenarios occurred, how that detective got selected to be the. The lead on this investigation, whether it was a simple, hey, you're up.
- [42:49]
B
You're.
- [42:50]
C
You were on deck and now you're up to bat. Or was it someone else, you know, placing him there?
- [42:57]
A
It just seems like it, you know, whatever systems are in place, everybody should be flexible. When, you know, I. I always use this expression. Others use the expression everybody has a plan until you get hit in the face. It's Mike Tyson's favorite line, you know, and the plan maybe needed some reworking. It's just my. My layperson's opinion, though, but question for you. So let's just say the young guy, he gets the case. Does he have the support of the rest of the homicide detectives propping him up in. Where he may be inexperienced and not know how to direct things? Would the other members of that unit be there to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks?
- [43:39]
C
Well, you have to look at the totality of the experience of the other
- [43:42]
B
members of the homicide unit. It.
- [43:44]
C
I don't know how many they have,
- [43:46]
B
whether it's 4, 5, or 6.
- [43:49]
C
Like I said when I was working, you Know, there was a point where we had three homicide detectives and we
- [43:54]
B
were getting slammed with cases and, you know, we were begging, we need more bodies.
- [43:59]
C
And at one point we got up
- [44:01]
B
to six, which was awesome because, you know, we each average, you know, one case every two months. And you know, that, that, that's doable. But the experience of the homicide unit members right now, they don't have a lot of street experience. You know, they may have five, six, seven years on as a cop, but they all have two or three years in investigations and two, three years in homicide and investigating. The amount of homicides that they're investigating, they're not getting a lot of experience. So I don't know if anyone in that unit felt confident and, or competent enough to stand up and say, hey, you know, this is a big deal. Let, let me take this.
- [44:56]
A
Well, I don't want to say blind leading the blind, because some of those people might have been really, really good at their jobs. Even as, you know, young and new on the job, they might have been good. But that does. It is distressing to hear that. I think I remember, Kurt, an interview that you did with my colleague Brian Enten, probably a month and a half back where you said, yeah, two to three years average experience for homicide cops in Pima County. That's baby cops.
- [45:21]
B
Yeah.
- [45:22]
A
I mean, baby cops is scary.
- [45:24]
B
Well, and that's, that's nationwide.
- [45:28]
C
I mean, we don't even have baby
- [45:29]
B
cops as far as investigative experience in homicide, but we have baby cops on the street. The Pima County Sheriff's department has 196 deputies, patrol deputies. 101 of them have not even completed their one year probation yet.
- [45:48]
A
Wait, what?
- [45:50]
B
So that means that you have 95 deputies on the street that have more than one year on their own.
- [46:00]
A
Holy cat. Then that's really.
- [46:02]
B
And you have 101 that haven't even finished a year on their own. 101 out of 196.
- [46:08]
A
Wow. Half.
- [46:11]
B
Half. Yeah, more than half.
- [46:15]
C
And so the experience, the experience thing
- [46:20]
B
is just knee deep in my former agency and agencies throughout the country, for the reasons that I explained earlier.
- [46:31]
A
It's distressing. I mean, let me ask you this. It's a bit of a right turn, but I'm still really curious because you mentioned there you are watching hours and hours of video, and it led me to remember that there are thousands of hours of video that had been solicited and likely come in to sheriff's department. Do you think it's still going on? Do you think it's Still a circumstance where deputies are, or detectives are watching video after video, looking for anything that might be a lead in this case. Or do you think we're past that at day, you know, 59,
- [47:09]
C
with the amount of hours of footage that they
- [47:12]
B
allegedly got in, I think that it's quite possible that they're still looking. I sat, excuse me, for one day straight, one case looking at video, just looking for cars going down a dirt road. And it's meticulous. It's. You can miss things because you're getting tired looking at the screen. So, yeah, I think they're still viewing footage, and I think that they're still following up on different leads and different forensic examinations, you know, that they're, that they're thinking of and that have come in.
- [47:52]
A
And that leads me to a question about experience, because as you said, and I know video, this is my world now. Right. And I also remember being a young associate producer, and I realized very quickly how much focus you actually have to employ watching video, because you can miss anything at any time. And so do you think the experience piece that we've been talking about is critical in the amount of video hours that have had to be watched, meaning not very experienced eyes are on those video projects?
- [48:24]
C
Well, I don't know. I mean, that's possible, but, you know, I, I.
- [48:28]
B
You got to think that most of these, you know, young cops these days grew up in a video, you know, technology, video games, technology.
- [48:38]
C
And so staring at screens, you know, may not for you and I. Yeah,
- [48:42]
B
you know, I'm in my mid-50s, and yeah, it sucks staring at the screen for hours and hours and hours, but, you know, maybe for this younger generation, it's not so bad. I don't know.
- [48:53]
A
Yeah, let's hope. Let's. I never thought of that. That's like. There's a little bit of optimism you've given me. I appreciate that. Talk to me about the. Let me just actually look, because I've been, I've been all over the map with this interview, and I don't want to miss some of the stuff that I'd. That I'd lined up to talk to you. I went way, way out of, way out of my plan. Oh, I'd love to ask you about something Sheriff Nanos said recently. Within the last week or so, maybe 10 days, he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, but effectively he said, I know why he was here, meaning the suspect, and I've known since day one. I cannot get my head around that because to my knowledge, Nobody knows why that guy was there or what his intention was in targeting Nancy Guthrie. And it feels like day one is very different than day 59 in the way the sheriff has, you know, directed this investigation. What are your thoughts?
- [49:52]
B
Right.
- [49:52]
C
Well, I mean, the sheriff doesn't like to be held accountable for things that he says. You know, he said that in his second news conference. It could have easily been something like
- [50:06]
B
he said his theory or, you know, hypothesis about, you know, what happened out loud.
- [50:14]
C
I think everybody had an opinion about what happened as soon as we saw the video.
- [50:22]
B
I don't know how soon he saw
- [50:25]
C
the video before he made that statement,
- [50:28]
B
but I think after seeing that video, I initially said, oh, I. I know why this guy's here. He's here to kidnap her. He's not there to burglarize the house. He's got a backpack full.
- [50:39]
C
Burglars don't go burglarized houses with full backpacks. So this guy was here to kidnap that.
- [50:46]
B
I believe his kidnapped stuff was in his backpack.
- [50:49]
C
And maybe the sheriff was thinking that as well. And you can tell he's not too
- [50:55]
B
savvy behind the microphone, right? I think I'm more capable of conducting interviews and answering questions than he is because I've had a lot of court experience, a lot of testifying experience.
- [51:12]
C
So maybe it was just something simple
- [51:13]
B
for him, you know, as simple as, you know, he just let his thoughts come out of his mouth, and, you know, he doesn't want to be held accountable for those.
- [51:23]
A
Well, it's a weird thing. It's a weird thing to say, because on day two, February 2, he gave a press conference in which he said the words. And again, I'm going to paraphrase, but he said this twice. There's no concern out there in the community, like, you're safe. There's no danger for you all. And, you know, we're giving up the scene and we're calling off the search. Well, you know, here we are, weeks later, months later, and we now have a guy, menacing ski mask on, who we can't find. And he then says the words, yes, this guy could. Could strike again. Now, that is not the word. And he said those two things, right? Those are. That does not comport with. I know why he was here, and I've known since day one. They are literally the opposite of each other.
- [52:14]
C
Yeah, they're.
- [52:14]
B
Yeah, they're completely the opposite.
- [52:16]
C
And again, I. I think.
- [52:19]
B
I think it's just the way he is. I. I think it's just his inability to communicate the things that, that he wants to say. I have that problem when I argue with my wife.
- [52:32]
A
Yeah, but you don't make up entire things, right? Like, one is one scenario
- [52:38]
C
in the public.
- [52:39]
A
This is not a. This is not a slip up. This is an entire. Two entirely different theories.
- [52:45]
C
And look, if and when this does go to trial, he's gonna have to
- [52:51]
B
be held accountable for that.
- [52:54]
C
Right? He's going to be called on the
- [52:56]
B
stand for that, and at least I hope he is.
- [53:00]
C
The prosecutor may not want to, but the defense attorney damn sure is going
- [53:04]
B
to want to get the sheriff up there.
- [53:06]
A
Defense would have a lot to work with. And again, I'm so glad that you're optimistic about getting to trial. I just want to find Nancy. At this point, I'd be so satisfied with just finding her, you know, just to. To give the family some peace. I. I don't even know if convictions and prison sentences even help, you know, closure for families. For some it does, but for others, they don't even listen. One of the Idaho four victims, parents really didn't. They didn't even attend any of the court proceedings for Brian Kohberger because it didn't make a difference to them. They said it won't make any difference to us. So I understand how some victims can take it very, very differently. I do want to ask you about something that I learned just this in this week. An episode yesterday, in fact, with. With information from the investigation that the perpetrator used the back kitchen door. And if you're looking at the house from the back, you're at the pool, you're looking at the back. There are three doors. This one's in the middle, and it's not very visible because it's perpendicular to the length of the house, but it effectively goes into the kitchen. And there's two doors, there's a screen door, and then there's the hard wooden door. And that both of those doors were open. The screen door was propped open with Nancy's flower pots and that the gate to the back door was also propped open with flower pots. You're a homicide detective. You know now what that looks like and where that would take you investigating this case, knowing full well that he went out the front door, because that's where Nancy's blood trail leads. It leads down the walkway and out to, presumably, the waiting car where the blood stops. What does it make you think of?
- [54:50]
B
Well, it makes me think that there were at least two individuals. And, you know, I've said this for quite a while that I think it's two to four, probably three to four individuals that, you know, were involved in this whole thing. Whether or not, you know, three or four people were at the house that night, I'm fairly certain that it's my belief that there were at least two individuals there. It's my belief that night because of the logistics of it all, there's no
- [55:27]
C
video of a car going in front
- [55:29]
B
of the house at all. There's no video of a car being in a driveway. The only thing on the video, other than the natural stuff that's always there is the one bad guy and there's.
- [55:43]
C
He's there two different times, two different dates.
- [55:48]
B
So it's obvious to me that this, these individuals did a scout, they did a recon of that. And how long that recon was, I don't know, but I could imagine that it may be days or even weeks of reconning the area.
- [56:13]
A
Well, if, you know what, if you believe Fox News is Michael Ruiz, Fox Digital has two law enforcement sources who told him that that image of the guy without the backpack and without the gun is from January 11th. So that would be two weeks in advance at of. Of scouting.
- [56:28]
C
So, yeah, I mean, it, it makes
- [56:30]
B
total sense that this was a planned operation based on what I've seen as far as how it went down. And, you know, what's knowledge to the public
- [56:42]
C
having the doors propped open, Someone could have been inside the house. You know, I guess she went in through the garage. Someone could have been waiting in the garage for her, shut the garage door, you know, get a hold of her. But I would really like to know, and the sheriff's department and the FBI
- [57:00]
B
haven't said this is whether or not there was any forced entry to that back door, because we all know that there wasn't forced entry to the front of the house because it was on camera for 40 some days. And I did not see any damage to any of the three back doors on the footage that I saw from the drones flying around.
- [57:23]
A
So it's a great question because it's impossible to see the door that I have since learned from my sources was used because again, if you're looking straight at the house from the backyard, it's, it's a, it's perpendicular to the house, so you can't see the vertical nature of that. If it opened up the screen door, you'd see the screen door sitting there open. It's to the left of the patio. It's basically the left side of the patio. But I do know that my law enforcement Source on day three told me there was forced entry. Now you tell me, because Nancy Guthrie's children told the police that Nancy often left her back doors unlocked. That was. Another law enforcement source told me that. That her kids had reported to the police that she often left those doors unlocked. So if a door is unlocked and you are using it to get in and you're putting a plant there, could that be considered forced entry? Or do you have to break something to force entry?
- [58:21]
C
No, forced entry is usually you're forcing
- [58:24]
B
your way in, whether it's, you know, cutting a screen, breaking a window. You know, breaking a window to reach in and grab a door to unlock it, prying a door open, kicking a door open. That's more of forced entry.
- [58:40]
C
Is it possible that, you know, Nancy left her. Her doors unlocked? Sure. Absolutely. I grew up in a small town in Michigan, and we never locked our
- [58:50]
B
doors to the house or cars in the 18 years that I lived there. And ever since, you know, I've lived in my house here. We lock our doors. We lock the house, and still my car has been burglarized. You know.
- [59:03]
A
You know, I'm wondering. There's two doors. So we were all confused. When Savannah said the back doors, plural, were propped open, we thought, wait a minute. My source at the very beginning said, back door wide open, not plural. But now it's obvious. It's two doors to the same entrance. It's the screen door and then the. The wooden door. And maybe it's possible, right? Not two entrances. One entrance was used. And the screen door, according to my sources, one, the screen door, was propped open with her flower pot. I was not able to ascertain whether the back door, the. The door that goes into the kitchen, the wooden door was. Was propped open with a flower pot. But a lot of times those doors won't swing closed. A screen door closed, but. And that makes me wonder if the big wooden door to the kitchen was unlocked, but maybe the screen door was locked. And that's an easy one to rip a screen and. And. And jig jigger with the lock. So maybe that's the forced entry. And again, my source could have been wrong in the beginning about forced entry. But I'll tell you what, that source has not been wrong about anything so far. Everything that was told to me on day three has actually played out. So I'd be surprised if this one wasn't. If this part of it wasn't true as well. Some kind of forced entry on that screen door.
- [60:20]
C
Well, you know, let's. Let's Walk through it.
- [60:25]
B
Logically,
- [60:28]
C
to me, if someone was going to prop. Why.
- [60:32]
B
Why would you prop open the back door?
- [60:35]
C
Why would you go through all that
- [60:36]
B
trouble in doing that while Nancy's gone?
- [60:39]
A
And
- [60:42]
B
why.
- [60:43]
C
I mean, if you have access to
- [60:44]
B
the house, why would you prop that door open? It makes zero sense to me.
- [60:51]
A
How about an escape route? Meaning you're going in there. I know that. The Golden State Killer. This was on our episode last night. Joseph d' Angelo would often leave windows and doors open so that he had a fast egress if he needed it. Meaning he was planning everything and didn't plan for. Oh, shit, somebody's here. I wasn't expecting, you know. And is it possible that that's why this guy might have propped open the gate and propped open the screen door and made his entry?
- [61:19]
C
Yeah, I think.
- [61:20]
B
Yeah, it's possible, absolutely.
- [61:23]
C
But to me, I mean, and Joseph d', Angelo, he was a former cop, right?
- [61:28]
A
Yes, he was.
- [61:29]
B
He was a cop when he was killing all these women. And so he was extremely meticulous in his ways. And, you know, I'm not trying to draw a parallel thinking that, you know, this is someone in law enforcement that was involved in this. Yeah, I think it was a very well thought out operation, and they obviously
- [61:51]
C
worked it for quite some time to
- [61:53]
B
where they felt the need to prop open the back door. I just think that it's strange. But that being said, that's also an area that, you know, was manipulated by. By the bad guy. So, you know, that's. That was an important part of the investigation. I'm assuming they buckle. Swabbed it and fingerprinted it and did all that stuff.
- [62:16]
A
Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. Because there's this mixed DNA, and I'm assuming that it may have come off of a. A door handle or maybe a flower pot or something, you know, because clearly he moved that flower pot into place, both of them. The one for the gate and the one for the screen door. But I'm curious if you think that it's possible it is just one per. Given that he may have propped those doors open to make a fast egress or because he was planning to bring Nancy back out through there and didn't want to have to do too much on his own. Right. And then realized she can't walk very far. Savannah said on a good day she could get to the mailbox, but most days she couldn't. And then he had to rethink it and realize, I think I got to go out the Front, maybe get the car in closer.
- [62:59]
C
So if it was one perp, I
- [63:02]
B
think it would have to go down this way.
- [63:04]
C
Right, but again, if it was one,
- [63:07]
B
why, why would you prop the frickin doors open and not just stay in the house? You know, why would you come to the front and, you know, do the camera stuff? It just doesn't make sense. But let's just say, you know, okay,
- [63:19]
C
it's one perp, he's in the house, he is able to bind her somehow.
- [63:26]
B
That affords her the ability to still, you know, be somewhat ambulatory, whether, you know, he tied her hands and, you know, had her walk out. And then at the front door, she gave up a little struggle and, you know, he popped her in the, the nose or the head with a gun or something else. And you know, she, you know, she started bleeding from the nose or the head.
- [63:49]
C
And that the blood spatter, the pattern that's there leads me to believe that
- [63:55]
B
it's, you know, from some type of head wound or, you know, a nose, a nose bleed because the, there was no directionality on the spatter. It's just straight down. It's like the individual is standing there and it was sudden and then all of a sudden it was gone.
- [64:11]
C
So if it was a single perp, you know, they could have had a struggle at the door where he caused her to bleed and got her out to the car, he could have wheeled her out in a wheelchair, you know, he could have tied her to a
- [64:25]
B
dolly in the house and, you know, brought.
- [64:27]
C
I, I don't know, but it just
- [64:29]
B
seems like an awful lot of work for a lone individual to do to be as successful as he was or
- [64:38]
A
Kurt, is it possible he's thinking, I've got a gun, I can do this very easily at gunpoint. Until he realizes this isn't as easy as I thought because she cannot walk the way I thought she could walk. I thought I would get her up out of bed and at gunpoint, make her walk to my car. And suddenly I realized I've got somebody who can't walk 50 yards, right? I gotta, I gotta rejig this. Yeah, I gotta rejig this plan.
- [65:05]
C
So, you know, going along those lines, you know, if she can't walk, if she's causing a fuss at the door, where it causes him to do something to make her bleed, you know, be she's causing a fuss at that threshold.
- [65:19]
B
You know, in law enforcement, we call that a fatal funnel. Because you don't want to stand there in front of a closed Door because bullets are just going to come through and you can't see it. Well, I mean, that was realistically Nancy's fatal funnel as well.
- [65:31]
C
She knew once she was outside the
- [65:33]
B
safety of her home that all bets were off.
- [65:36]
C
So if she did cause a little struggle there and caused him to make
- [65:40]
B
her bleed, I would think that there would be more signs of a struggle leading out in that gravel driveway.
- [65:49]
A
My inside sources have told me that from day one, blood inside the house, okay. I couldn't figure out where, but weeks later I was able to find out that the blood pattern that is on the front outside tiles is replicated inside. And again, I couldn't find out where until finally I did. And it is right inside her door. So basically her front foyer has the same blood pattern, the vertical drops, as the outdoor front tiled entrance of her home. So clearly something happened inside.
- [66:23]
C
And then it appears that she caused
- [66:25]
B
a struggle right there, right at the door. And if that is the case and
- [66:31]
C
she was still able to move, you would think that there would be drag marks.
- [66:40]
B
You know, she doesn't want to leave the safety of her house.
- [66:42]
C
You know, maybe she's got tape around
- [66:44]
B
her mouth and she can't scream, right.
- [66:46]
C
She's still going to be making noises.
- [66:49]
B
Dogs, neighbors, dogs were barking at the time.
- [66:52]
C
I would just think that you would
- [66:54]
B
see more disturbance in the pea gravel driveway because that stuff is easily disturbed by footprints, by drags, by car marks, by.
- [67:05]
A
I also thought about being 84 and if you have an elderly parent, many of us watching will know right now that usually the skin is very, very tissue paper, like especially if you're on blood thinners. So it might have even been restraints that caused, you know, bleeding. I mean, I know for a fact that you could not possibly put my mom in restraints or that would bleed, you know?
- [67:27]
C
Yeah, no, and that's totally possible, totally possible. But again, if she was struggling enough for them to make her bleed, to
- [67:36]
B
do something to make her bleed, meaning they struck her somehow, or even if it was bleeding from handcuffs or some type of binding mechanism, I would still think that you would see more of a struggle in the driveway, more of a disturbance going on outside the home.
- [67:58]
A
So do you have you game the system, have you gamed this in, in your head what you think actually happened? And if you have, can you tell me many?
- [68:05]
C
I've gotten many far out theories. I've, I've got theories, you know, that,
- [68:11]
B
you know, are very centered and I've got theories that are on, you know, the far, the farthest ring of Saturn, you know, that's out there. And it goes from the sensible to the wild.
- [68:24]
A
But you have to do that, right? As a homicide detective, don't you have to do that.
- [68:27]
B
You legitimately have to do that. I've shared a few of them. You know, I'll think, I think I'll keep my, you know, out of space ones to myself. But I, I think it's, you know, two to four individuals, maybe three or four just because of logistics involved and that it was a well planned out, somewhat well executed operation by whether or
- [68:59]
C
not these individuals had done it before, I don't know.
- [69:01]
B
But they damn sure did their homework on this.
- [69:07]
A
So if it was a kidnap, I'm assuming it would be for money. Right. Why else would you kidnap an 84 year old woman? Right. Well, you're looking up as though maybe not. Tell me.
- [69:17]
C
Well, I don't know. I mean it's. I thought so originally. Right. But what you have to do in not only this case, but every homicide
- [69:26]
B
investigation is you have to figure out who benefits, somebody benefits from this. Whether it's monetarily, whether it's revenge, whether it's just some crazy dude.
- [69:42]
C
I don't think it's someone like, you know, that is, has a mental deficiency.
- [69:48]
B
And it was infatuated with Nancy because she wasn't a very public person. She had been on the news with Savannah. So I don't think it's some deranged individual. And those deranged individuals that go about doing these type of, you know, Jodie Foster, you know, victimized, you know, Ronald Reagan, you know, those type of things, those fixation. Yeah. Those are not very meticulous individuals. They may be very smart, but the way they went about their actions were clouded by passion. Completely different than this. Yeah. This was a very non passionate crime. Yeah.
- [70:38]
C
If you will.
- [70:38]
B
Yeah.
- [70:39]
A
But then why then. Because I, I think that's a plausible theory. Until I get to. You wait three days to give some kind of a ransom request to a national website and two local TV stations. That part didn't make any sense.
- [70:56]
B
That's why I still don't.
- [70:57]
A
Right. You know that the ransom business is a serious business and they don't want anybody involved with noise.
- [71:03]
B
Yep, 100%. And for them not to leave any
- [71:07]
C
contact information to get a hold of
- [71:09]
B
them to make their wish come to fruition. I think that, you know, they were red herrings.
- [71:18]
C
Because if you're going to kidnap somebody, you're going to send that ransom right away.
- [71:22]
A
Yeah.
- [71:22]
C
And you're going to send it to the person. Now, this has played out extremely publicly.
- [71:29]
B
Right. You've got a well known
- [71:34]
C
individual that
- [71:36]
B
is being forced to play this out in the public. And that's why I say, you know, revenge might be one of the the who benefits? So I'm hoping that the detectives, you know, and the investigators are looking at all manners of motives for this.
- [72:00]
C
And again, motives aren't needed for a criminal conviction, but they sure do help
- [72:05]
B
a hell of a lot during the investigation.
- [72:08]
A
Well, and they also just help answer the question. And again, look, it would be nice for all of us to know because we're all completely bewildered by this. But first and foremost, the family needs to know what the hell happened to my mom and why. These are just the most vexing things that I hope one day we'll solve. And you feel good, huh, Kurt? You think that we'll get those answers?
- [72:30]
C
I do. You know why? Because law enforcement doesn't stop.
- [72:34]
B
You know, I retired and the cog still keeps going. These detectives are going to retire. And if the case doesn't get solved right now, technology is going to continue to increase and the case will get solved. You know, we don't stop looking just because in the future, if this case
- [72:51]
C
goes cold, they run through all 40,000 tips, they've looked at all the video, they've done all the interviews, and the case goes cold. It doesn't mean that it gets stopped.
- [73:05]
B
Work on. We still have a cold case unit, and those detectives read through these cases all the time. They look for DNA. They look for little things that they can do now that they're doing stuff
- [73:18]
C
now that they couldn't do four years ago when I was a homicide detective.
- [73:22]
B
So that's why I think it's going to be solved.
- [73:25]
A
Well, Kurt Dabb, thank you for your service all those years and thank you for this interview. I really appreciate it.
- [73:30]
B
You're welcome.
- [73:32]
A
So there you have it. Super interesting to be able to speak with somebody with so much experience in trying to just game out all the possibilities when you have a mystery on your hands. You got to go down all those roads, as crazy as they may seem. You got to go down all those those roads and then you got to figure out where the evidence matches and where the evidence will take you. So my great thanks to Kurt Dabb for speaking with us about this. Now, as for where things are going, I do have some information. Tomorrow's episode, we're going to talk to who's being interviewed, because I have found out who's being interviewed in this investigation. Super Fascinating. But for now, thank you so much for staying with me through this episode. I so appreciate you. If you haven't already subscribed, it's right there. It's cute. It's the little me with the, you know, the silly little cartoon hair. And I really do thank you so much if you have subscribed. And I thank you in advance if you're about to, because it does do me a huge solid and it allows the independent journalism to continue. I don't got no boss, so this is it. And it really just all relies on you and your support. So thanks and join as a member and you get all the extra bonus content that we reserve just for the members. We have lots of fun Q and A's. Every couple of weeks I sit down for an hour. Last, last time, I think, was two hours. And we just say, ask me anything and I'll answer whatever you got. And some of the questions have been really, really clever and very interesting. And we have some fun, too. Last time there was wine off camera. Thanks so much, everybody for being here. I so appreciate it. Remember this, if you don't remember anything else, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.